<p>I realize most people ask about more prestigious schools. However, I'll ask anyway. UT is in my home state, and its a huge school. The more alum of your school in the work force, the better.</p>
<p>Anyway, I'll be a HS senior next year. I go to a small private school, most recently ranked 11th in the city. At the end of sophmore year my class rank was 15/75. But all the lower ranke dpeople just keep leaving, and I'm probably still at about 15, but the total number of people has decreased by a lot. I have a cumulative 93.9 GPA in the following classes:</p>
<p>Freshmen year:
Biology
H-Geometry
Public Speaking
U.S. History
Bible
H-English</p>
<p>Sophmore year:
French I
Theartre Arts I
Bible
H-Physics
H-World History
H-Algebra II
H-English</p>
<p>Jr. Year:
Human Geography
Bible
French II
H-Chemistry
H-Pre-Cal
Computer Applications
AP English</p>
<p>My PSAT score was 96th percentile, which will net me National Merit commendee. My SAT score was 2030, 1290 between the 2 original sections. My extracurricular activities include JV and varisty basketball (4 years) tennis (1 year), the high school aerospace scholars program sponsored by NASA, job experience being a Dallas Mavericks ballkid for 5 years, being in the national Honor Society, and having over 50 hours of community service. </p>
<p>I wasn't too worried about getting into UT until I read that 65% of their undergrads were top 10% in their class, and 94% were top quarter. Texas has a stupid law that anyone in the top 10% of their graduating class automatically gets into any public university. I think I'm still top quarter, but with everyone leaving my school, I don't knwo anymore.</p>
<p>Texas has a program where they will guarantee admission for your final two years if you agree to attend another campus for the first two years. You might get in that way. Otherwise, I don't know. You might get in anyway, but you need to have some other options...UTSA?</p>
<p>Baylor is my safety, and is actually a really good one. It just broke the list of top 75 schools in America. Either way, UT sucks for their 10% rule. You can't tell me I wouldn't coast to the top 10% at a DISD school.</p>
<p>Should I take some SAT 2's? Should I bother taking hard Sr. year courses? You'd think a 2030 on the SAT and being top qtr at a good private school would get me in, but its gotten a lot harder recently. Also, I'm pretty sur eUT still just looks at math and verbal on the SAT. I got a 1290 between the 2, which is 60 pts higher than their average. I'm not sure what their median is, but its got to be a little lower than the avg.</p>
<p>Vyse - along with UT-Austin, consider the honors colleges at other Texas state universities. Your credentials seem to make you an excellent candidate. For instance, Texas Tech's Honors College has about 1,000 students who get a special honors dorm; honors classes with 25 students or less; get first crack at signing up for classes; special library privileges; special entrance criteria to Tech's medical school and law school; etc. At UT-Austin you would be a very good student among tens of thousands of very good students. In the honors programs of University of North Texas, University of Houston, Texas State, etc. you would be a very good student in a smaller pond with the red carpet tossed out to you. Take a look, you might be pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>Also, if Baylor is on your radar, also consider University of Tulsa (TU) where you would likely get an excellent merit award. TU has a smaller teacher to student ratio (11 to 1 compared to 17 to 1 at Baylor); a larger endowment; Division I athletics; and a dynamic city in Tulsa that runs circles around Waco.</p>
<p>If "big state u" is your cup of tea, also put University of Oklahoma on your radar. The campus and environment are very impressive and competitve with almost every state univeristy in Texas both academically (and athletically of course).</p>
<p>The overall point is that there are excellent alternatives to UT-Austin that might be appealing to you as well.</p>
<p>Vyse - I should have said this in my previous reply, but you could always transfer to UT-Austin after the first year at another university (such as an state university honors college) if that was your desire. However, you might have such a good experience at the other university that you would not even consider transferring any more. (This was my son's case at Tech.)</p>
<p>Vyse, Don't worry. My S was not in top 10% (more like 30%), also went to a good private HS, scored high on SAT, NMF, and got in regular admission to Natural Sciences at UT Austin. To give you an idea of the acceptance from his school. There were 220 graduates this year, 43 were accepted to UT Austin regular admission, 7 were accepted to UT-Plan II. As you can see, you do not have to be in the top 10% if you have other things going into your app. They do take into account the difficulty and competitiveness of the HS you are coming out of.</p>
<p>Ok, thanks for the advice guys. I'm definitely going to keep looking around. I'm just especially interested to know if I can get into UT or not, because it's the hardest Texas University to get into other than somewhere like Rice.</p>